Listen to that audio a few times if you need to. It might take a little while to sink in but this is one of the most fundamental blues guitar lessons of all so you need to stick with it until you understand it! 🙂

Note: This is a moveable pattern

In the above example we happen to be playing in the key of A. But we could be in any key – the PATTERN stays the same.

For example, if we were playing 12 bar blues in the key of B then everything above would simply be moved up two frets.

Our chords A, D, E turn into B, E, F#

The 12 bar blues progression is a PATTERN that can be used in any key. (The chords may change, but the pattern stays the same.)

Learning the progression

Throughout all these blues guitar lessons we’re going to be referring back to this pattern. It’s important you get comfy with these chords so you can follow along.

90% of the time, a 12 bar blues pattern will use just 3 chords.

For these 4 blues guitar lessons we’re going to be kicking around in the key of A, so we’ll be using these three chords: A Major, D Major and E Major.

Don’t worry too much about understanding ‘keys’ for now, just worry about getting these chords down!

Let’s quickly learn these essential blues chords:

A Major

To follow along with these blues guitar lessons you need to master this chord:

Notice how we can loop the chords around and just go right back to the beginning? That’s the beauty of blues music, it can just keep on going. The progression is very satisfying and doesn’t need a ‘chorus’ or ‘bridge’.

This is a brilliant chord pattern to jam with and is a ‘universal’ chord progression used by musicians all over the world. If you want to jam with a total stranger, this is what you use.

Can you see now why this is one of the most valuable blues guitar lessons of all? I hope so! 🙂

One of the ‘problems’ with the chords we’ve used here is that when you first learn these chords they don’t sound totally bluesy.

This is where we can use substitute chords to make them sound bluesier! (And in the next of these blues guitar lessons that’s what we’re going to look at.)

So just to re-cap and make sure we’re clear on the chords we’re using for these blues guitar lessons, if you’re playing in the key of A then you swap A, D and E (take them out completely) and replace them with A7, D7 and E7.

Don’t worry if you can’t get this riff down. It’s quite intricate. The important thing is you can see the NOTES we’re using here. You can play around with these notes and improvise to your heart’s content because you KNOW they’ll work in a blues setting.

ACTION POINT: Try and improvise with these notes over a backing track. Type “blues backing track in A” into YouTube and you’ll find dozens of cool backing tracks you can improvise over.

Combining What We’ve Learned Into One Awesome Blues-fest!

As well as using all these notes on their own we can combine all of what covered to sound like we’re totally bluesy.

Here’s an example where I play over a backing track using all three licks (and the chords we covered earlier).

Hopefully you can hear how bluesy it sounds and understand how we built this up through chords, the 12 bar progression and then using some bluesy notes to add spice.

Have a go at mixing these licks up, they sound great together. The best way to learn these licks is to use them and mix them up. Play around with them. Make mistakes and notice new patterns, that’s all part of the fun!

Download our lead guitar cheat-sheet to make things easier

It can be disorientating for guitarists to understand which scales work with which keys.

Blues Guitar Lessons #4 – Learning from the greats

“I’ve learnt the right scales that work over blues, but I don’t sound good! What am I doing wrong?”

The most important lesson I learned when playing the blues was to borrow and learn phrases from my favourite guitar players.

Sometimes when I tell people this they say: “But isn’t that stealing? You’re not being creative and original if you’re stealing from other guitarists…”

The reality is that ALL musicians borrow ideas from other musicians and use them in their own music. It’s how music works. And it’s also a great way to sound awesome quickly.

Some Classic Blues Riffs and Licks

For the last of these blues guitar lessons I’ve transcribed a few licks from some blues icons, which you can learn and use in your own guitar playing.

Luckily for us, they’re all in the key of A so we can drop these licks straight into our A Blues progression that we’ve been working on throughout this lesson. (You might not be one of the blues greats just yet, but you’re on the road amigo!)

By learning these licks, you can use these ideas in your own playing and become inspired to be a blues god.

Keep ‘layering’ up your knowledge

Blues guitar lessons like those we’ve covered today just add one layer. Keep learning and you add layer after layer. That’s how you make progress. Don’t worry about learning everything. Just add the next ‘layer’.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to listen and learn from your musical heroes. Not only is it inspiring, but the amount you learn from actually playing what they played is incredible.

Find Out What You Should Learn Next With Our Guitar Map

If you want to understand where you’re up to in your guitar journey you should take a look at our Guitar Map.
It will show you what you ‘should’ know by now (and also what you need to learn next to move forward as a guitarist).

Most people find that the Guitar Map shows them how everything fits together and best of all, it will help you identify gaps in your knowledge that are holding you back.

(There is often just one piece of information that holds people back, 1 key insight that they need to know so they can continue moving forward and improving in their guitar journey.)

I made the Guitar Map so people like you can quickly identify what you don’t know, that you need to know next. I hope that makes sense!?